There is known a sheet member which is constituted by, for example, a single or plural kinds of inorganic materials, metallic materials or the like and which has a desired configuration and a thickness of about 1 (μm)–10 (mm). Where such a sheet member is constituted by the inorganic material, it is produced by first subjecting an unfired ceramic sheet prepared in accordance with a tape casting method or the like, to a machining operation such as drilling and patterning performed by, for example, laser, punching press, water/sand blasting or the like, and then firing the machined sheet, or alternatively, it is produced by first firing a ceramic sheet and then subjecting the fired sheet to a machining operating such as drilling and patterning performed by, for example, laser and sand blasting. Where such a sheet member is constituted by the metallic material, it is produced, for example, by chemically etching a sheet metal, or by first forming a film in an electroforming and then removing the film from a mold, or by pressing a sheet metal.
However, the conventional sheet member suffers from limitations in its thickness, dimension and configuration, due to above-described producing methods. Further, where the sheet member is made of a plurality of materials, an intermediate product has to be first formed from a single one of the plurality of materials, and the intermediate product has to be then subjected to additional operations. Further, any one of the producing methods requires a large-scaled installation, and provides a difficulty in handling the sheet member in the production process when the sheet member has a large surface area and a small thickness. For example, where a ceramic sheet is laser machined, it is necessary to employ a laser machine which is expensive, and there are limitations in quality of the machined surface since the sheet could suffer from its deterioration depending upon the used material. Further, the laser machining requires a large length of operation time. Where a sheet metal is chemically etched, it is likely to be deformed or wrinkled if the sheet metal has a large surface area. Further, where protrusions and recesses have to be formed on a surface of the sheet metal, it is necessary to carry out a half-etching operation whose process is so complicated that the quality tends to be variable. Further, where the sheet member is used for constituting electrodes, the sheet member has to be divided into sections corresponding to the respective electrodes, thereby considerably increasing a number of the components and complicating handling of the sheet member.
If the dimensional and configurational limitations due to the producing methods are alleviated, and if the formation with a plurality of materials becomes easy, the sheet member could be applied to various devices such as ozone generator, oxygen separator and display device.